TALLAHASSEE, Florida — State police are coming to the homes of voters in Florida to question them about signing a petition to amendment on abortion rights on the ballot in November, and a government health agency has launched a website that approaches the initiative with politically charged language.
Critics say it’s the latest attempt by Republican elected officials in Florida to use state resources to block the abortion rights measure. Some Democratic officials argue the moves violate state laws against voter intimidation.
“Ron (DeSantis) has repeatedly used the power of the state to interfere with a citizen-led process to get reproductive freedom on the ballot,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried told reporters Monday. “This is their last ditch effort before Election Day.”
The ballot initiative, known as Amendment 4, would enshrine abortion rights in Florida law. If approved by 60 percent of voters, the procedure would remain legal until the fetus is viable, as determined by the patient’s health care provider.
Isaac Menasche, one of almost a million people who signed the petition to get the measure on the ballot said a police officer knocked on his door last week in Lee County in southwest Florida to ask him if he would sign the petition.
The officer said the questioning was part of an investigation into alleged petition fraud. Tampa Bay Times reported.
“I’m not someone who’s going to go out there and protest abortion,” Menasche told the newspaper. “I just felt strong and I jumped at the chance when the person asked me to say, ‘Yes, I’m going to sign that petition.'”
Critics say the investigation is a brazen attempt to intimidate voters in the nation’s third-largest state and dissuade them from protecting abortion access. It is also the latest in a series of attempts by the governor to attack Amendment 4.
“Amendment 4 was put on the ballot by nearly a million Floridians across the state and across party lines who believe that people, not politicians, deserve the freedom to make their own health care decisions,” Lauren Brenzel, the executive director of the Yes on 4 campaign, said in an email. “But the state will do everything in its power to maintain its near-total abortion ban.”
Florida law currently bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know they are pregnant.
At a news conference Monday in South Florida, DeSantis defended the police home visits to petition signers and a separate effort by a state health care agency to create a website focused on the amendment on the ballot, saying both are intended to ensure a fair vote in November.
DeSantis signed a bill in 2022 that state police force which investigates electoral fraud and electoral crimes. Election fraud is rareusually occurs in isolated cases and is generally detected.
He said election police are going to the homes of people who signed the petitions that got Amendment 4 onto the ballot, not to intimidate them, but because questions have been raised about the legitimacy of the signatures. He said police have found evidence that some of the alleged signatures belong to deceased people.
“Anyone who has filed a petition and is a valid voter has every right to do so,” DeSantis said. “We are not investigating that. What they are investigating are fraudulent petitions. We know that this group filed on behalf of deceased people.”
A deadline in state law The validity of the signatures has long been questioned, but county election administrators across Florida say they have received requests from state officials to turn over verified petition signatures as part of a state investigation.
Mary Jane Arrington, a Democrat who has been the elections supervisor in Osceola County in central Florida for 16 years, told The Associated Press she had never received such a request before.
Arrington said she didn’t know what to make of the state’s request to check the signatures her office had already verified.
“These are the ones that we have deemed valid, both in completeness and in their signature matching what we had on file from the voter,” Arrington said. “They said they were investigating … petition signature fraud.”
The state’s election crimes division has opened more than 40 investigations into paid petition gatherers as part of the Amendment 4 campaign, according to a letter from Deputy Secretary of State Brad McVay to the Palm Beach County supervisor of elections shared with the AP.
Judges dismissed the case previous criminal cases brought by the controversial Office of Election Crimes and Security.
Meanwhile, a state health care agency last week launched a new website focused on Amendment 4, with a landing page proclaiming that “Florida protects life” and warning, “Don’t let the fear mongers lie to you.”
DeSantis said the page, created by Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration, is paid for through a budget the department has to make public announcements. He said the page is not political but gives Floridians “factual information” about the amendment.
“Everything that comes out is factual. It’s not an election campaign,” DeSantis said at the news conference, adding, “I’m glad they’re doing it.”
Florida is one of nine states where measures to protect abortion access will go before voters in 2024.
Florida Republicans have used several other strategies to thwart the state’s abortion vote. Florida’s Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody tried the state supreme court to keep abortion off the ballot. Later, abortion rights advocates criticized a financial impact statement that would have been placed on the ballot next to the proposed amendment as an attempt to mislead voters. The state Supreme Court ruled in August that the language could remain on the ballot.
Meanwhile, anti-abortion groups and GOP allies across the country are using a series of strategies to oppose proposed ballot initiatives to protect reproductive rights. These tactics have led to legislative efforts to pass competing ballot measures that could confuse voters and months of delays due to litigation over the text of the ballot initiative.
Nebraskans, for example, are awaiting rulings from the state Supreme Court on three lawsuits aimed at keeping abortion off the ballot. And the Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear arguments in an appeal of a lower court ruling that an abortion rights campaign failed to meet legal requirements to be eligible for the November ballot.
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Associated Press journalists Christine Fernando in Chicago, Geoff Mulvihill in Philadelphia and Terry Spencer in Fort Lauderdale contributed to this report.
___ Kate Payne is a staff member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-reported issues.